Teachers' 'bright ideas' win project awards

Frank Morris/Bluffton TodayEmily Gray, Red Cedar Elementary School physical education teacher, surrounded by students and Principal Kathleen Corley, holds the symbolic $350 check received Thursday for her winning Bright Ideas school project proposal. She was with fifth grade teacher Amy Barr's class when the Palmetto Electric prize patrol arrived. "$350 - that's a lot of money," she said. Thanks to the "Stride Track" project award, a computer program will replace the Popsicle sticks system used by a running club to count laps, with one stick representing each half-mile lap.

Winning “bright ideas” for education projects brought 43 area teachers and team members a combined $34,275 last week in awards by the Palmetto Electric Trust and Palmetto Electric Cooperative.

The 43 grants in the seventh annual Bright Ideas program averaged $797 and will pay for innovative classroom projects.

They will benefit more than 7,500 students in grades kindergarten through 12 in southern Beaufort County and in Hampton and Jasper counties, Palmetto Electric officials said.

“The cooperative’s Bright Ideas Patrol presented the money where it will be spent — the teachers’ classrooms. Representatives from the cooperative and the trust greeted teachers with balloons, gift bags and their checks at each school,” a news release said.

Prizes were distributed on Thursday to 22 teachers in Beaufort County. Winners and their project titles included:

Next month, the cooperative will host a luncheon at Palmetto Electric’s New River facility to honor the teachers and administrators.

The cooperative earlier this year invited teachers to submit proposals. Last month, 102 grant applications with requests totaling $89,117 were received from teachers in the three counties. A retired professor and an active professor served as judges. Their identities were not disclosed.

Funding came from the cooperative’s Operation Round Up, by which customers “round up” their electric bills to the nearest dollar; the co-op’s annual Million Dollar Hole-in-One Shootout golf contest, and WIRE (Women Involved in Rural Electrification) Chapters.

The largest award was for $1,000 and the smallest for $240, said Jimmy Baker, co-op vice president of marketing and public relations. He and Missy Santorum, co-op public relations manager, helped distribute prizes.

The winners usually show surprise. “Sometimes they scream. Sometimes they cry,” Baker said Thursday.

Palmetto Electric is a nonprofit, consumer-owned power cooperative providing electricity to more than 66,000 consumers in southern Beaufort, Jasper and Hampton counties.